WATERBURY — The biological mother of the man who says he was held captive for 20 years came forward Wednesday to blast the alleged wicked step-mother who is charged with abusing her son.
Tracy Vallerand also tried to explain why she gave up the boy shortly after he was born.
“I don’t hate people at all,” Vallerand said of Kimberly Sullivan. “This one, I hate.”
Sullivan, 56, had a brief hearing that ended before she could even enter a plea on the cruelty and kidnapping charges she faces. She is out on $300,000 bail after she was accused of forcing her step-son to live in a tiny 8-foot-by-9-foot room that was locked from the outside.
Sullivan rushed into a waiting car as her two daughters, the victim’s half-sisters, broke toward another vehicle.
Vallerand, 52, was in court with her own daughter, Heather Tessman.
She told reporters that she gave up her son when he was just 6 months old and left his father Kraigg Sullivan to raise him with his new wife Kimberly.
“Things didn’t work out between the two of us, and I was thinking that I was giving my son a better chance at a full life. If I had known…what…I just can’t fathom it. I have no words,” Vallerand said, according to NBC Connecticut.
“There was a park that I was told Kraigg would actually take him for walks. I would park there and be there for hours just trying to see if I’d see him. Never seen him,” she said.
Vallerand said she tried to find her son after he turned 18, but he has no social media. By then, cops said, he had been held in captivity for at least seven years — having allegedly been pulled out of school and confined inside at age 11.
“Can’t fathom it. Then to have her two daughters in the house as well,” she said. “What were they doing? Were they waiting for him to actually die? What were they gonna do then?” Vallerand said.
“What she did is sub-human. You can’t get away with that,” said the victim’s half-sister, Tessman.
After the hearing, Sullivan’s attorney Ioannis A. Kaloidis said that the proceedings had been continued to Friday because the state wants to put her under electronic monitoring.
When asked why Sullivan is shocked by the allegations — even though her adult stepson allegedly hadn’t been seen in 20 years and weighed just 68 pounds when authorities found him — Kaloidis said it’s the state’s job to prove his client actually committed the crimes.
“The great thing about this system is we don’t have to explain it,” Kaloidis said “The state has made allegations. The state has to prove those allegations in court. Those allegations are serious, but those allegations are made by one person.”
“I understand the whole world has jumped on those allegations and has already convicted my client,” he continued. “The good thing about America is that that’s not how we work. She’s presumed innocent until proven otherwise in court.
“Right now, they’re just allegations,” he said. “I’m sorry that she’s been convicted worldwide and everyone wants to proceed to a lynching, but we have a system. She has rights.”
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